


Decay of the Righteous

by potterswinchesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sinners, kinda weird i'm warning you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 10:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15141440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterswinchesters/pseuds/potterswinchesters





	Decay of the Righteous

Castiel began his life just as every other angel did: with white wings.

Angels were celestial beings, and the composition of their wings was not so different from that of the stars they lived amongst. They were pure, perfect in every respect, just as God intended them to be. They did not sin. They caused no pain or suffering. They were resplendence—light in a dark and infinite universe.

But when God had finished creating the angels, he fabricated his messiest creation of all: humanity. Castiel’s brothers and sisters were tasked with watching over these humans, healing the worthy and smiting other creatures that threatened their existence.

Castiel rarely descended from Heaven to Earth; he preferred to watch from the cosmos as humans died and were born. He watched the pinpricks of light their souls gave off, imagining that humans were not flawed. That they did not wage wars against one another. That they did not lie to deceive, or kill in bursts of rage. That their souls did not suffer. If not for their flaws, he found he rather liked them. They were beautiful in a deceptive way.

The first time Castiel came to Earth, he landed in the middle of a graveyard, where there were dozens upon dozens of marked graves. His tender heart longed to leave flowers on every gravestone he came across, for every human whose tears had once spilled. Instead, he lingered, ensuring his white wings remained hidden in the etheric plane, where human eyes could not perceive them. There was only one person present: a young woman. She wept and knelt beside a stone, one of her hands caressing it, as though it could feel the touch. Castiel could see that the bone in her left arm was broken; but even more grave was the wound on her soul, caused by despondency. He swept over to her side, his essence gently caressing her until she was healed: body and soul.

When he returned to Heaven, Castiel felt a sharp pain in each of his wings. When he inspected them, he found that they appeared as though they had been licked by tongues of flame—newly blackened edges adorned them.

Though he lamented the loss of the beauty his wings had once beheld, he knew this was a punishment for his benevolence towards a sinner. He had been fully aware that the young woman he’d healed hadn’t been perfectly clean. She had often lied and stolen. But she’d been alive, and good beneath it all, and so Castiel did not regret healing her.

The second time Castiel descended from Heaven to Earth, his wings were far less whole than they’d been previously; he landed on his knees in a battlefield, dizzy from a turbulent flight. Many soldiers were hurt, but Castiel’s focus landed on one in particular.

He could see that the soul of _this_ man was as ravaged as the ground he walked on, for he had already lost his lover in battle. A bullet was buried in the man’s side, crimson liquid pouring from his body and being soaked up by the ground, which was so barren it drank anything it was given. He was lying on his back, praying for aid from God when Castiel could see that this man wasn’t even a devout one (he knew, however, that tragedy tended to bring out the faith in some). The sound of gunshots made Castiel’s ears ring and bullets flew past his head, but the angel ignored them and went swiftly to the broken man’s side. Without a moment’s hesitation, the angel pressed the tips of his fingers to the man’s forehead, mending his wounds. Drawing his pain away.

That night, from the sky, Castiel cried tears of blood as his wings darkened and more feathers were torn off. In that moment, he knew he was experiencing what could only be described as _humanity_ , for nothing was comparably as painful. All because he had healed yet another sinner: a man who had lain with him, and worse yet… had _loved_ him.

To Castiel, love could not be a sin.

From then, Castiel healed many more humans. Men, women and children—all were graced with the touch of his essence. He healed others at the expense of his own well-being. When he first found a spider buried in the feathers of his wings, he thought nothing of it; but now, many creatures clung to his wings. Scorpions and tarantulas—the blasphemies of the Earth—built their sanctuary in him, every so often pausing to sting or bite, injecting Castiel with poison that caused his essence to wane.

His final deed happened when he was nearly as broken as the person he set out to heal.

It was an inebriated woman with enough alcohol in her system to kill her. When Castiel stumbled into the bathroom she was in, using the door frame to hold himself up, he directed the last of his grace into healing her.

He returned to Heaven before he fell apart.

Blackened feathers fell from Castiel’s wings like ashes in the wind. A spider crawled up the angel’s shoulder, and he turned his head towards it in time for it to reach his face.

A smile graced his lips.

The effects of his final act began to take form. As he decayed further and further, the blue of his eyes faded to grey, the skin flaked off of his bones, even his halo wavered—but the grin remained.

He had done well.


End file.
